Wise Men Say: Sunderland’s Stamford Bridge trip could go any way now

Stephen Goldsmith

I’ve had this scenario in my head all week long that the mighty Red and Whites turn up to Stamford Bridge tomorrow and put the final nail in Jose’s coffin.

A side not playing for their manager and remarkably low on confidence doesn’t want a side organised by Sam Allardyce turning up on their doorstep.

It would be quite poetic, actually, to think that Sunderland could be the first ever side to win a league game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge with Mourinho in charge, then be the last ever side to go and beat him there too.

That would be a nice little pub quiz question that runs the course of time, I reckon.

Then he goes and loses his job a couple of days earlier than I hoped!

It’s hard to know exactly how the Chelsea players will respond, of course.

As a long-suffering Lads fan, there’s often a fine line between being negative and being realistic and my thoughts are naturally directed towards the conclusion that they’ll turn up with a weight lifted from their shoulders and finally express themselves; really put sorry Sunderland to the sword.

Or maybe, just maybe, everybody was reading between the lines incorrectly and the players were actually playing for him all along. Maybe their form is not of his doing.

If that’s the case then they’ll likely turn up, express themselves and play for him one last time; putting sorry Sunderland to the sword.

Whichever way you look at it, it seems much more of a worrying proposition that it did early yesterday.

Let’s be frank, the Watford game showed us that things aren’t quite as rosy on Wearside as we perhaps allowed ourselves to imagine prior to it.

Chelsea have far too much quality not to capitalise on any small sign of a defensive horror show and I’m sure the players will have been working on closing space and defending as a team pretty much all week in training.

Considering the performance at Arsenal, it does give you a glimmer of hope.

If Sunderland can defend solidly and counter like they did at the Emirates, then Chelsea have shown nothing this season that suggests the Black Cats shouldn’t be at least semi-confident going into the game.

But, to clarify yet again, some of our attacking players can ill-afford to leave their shooting boots up the M1. Fabio Borini is having somewhat of a mini-crisis in his second spell on Wearside, but I’ve had it in my head for a while that he’s going to have a big say in a game soon. In a positive way, I may add!

Maybe it could be his time this weekend?

As a former Chelsea player who’s had success there with ourselves in recent years, he’ll certainly be motivated to have an impact.

Additionally, we’ve pretty much banged the Jermain Defoe drum all week on the pod and if there are to be any mix-ups or defensive clangers from a shaky Chelsea defence, you’d absolutely want the little man to be around to gobble up any chances.

In fact, whoever plays at that end of the field has to have an overdue impact for the Lads this weekend – it’s hard to believe we won’t have at least a couple of chances.

We’ve had memorable wins at this ground in recent times and also we’ve been hit for five and seven.

I’ve a feeling this weekend revisit one of those extremes either way.

* The Wise Men Say podcast is available from every Monday, with SAFC debate from a variety of guests and post-match reaction. You can stream it direct from wisemensay.co.uk or subscribe to it on iTunes